YP Summit Recap & YP Update

March 2023, Young Professional, Camille Gozum and Shannon Black, from the HWEA and AWWA Hawai’i Section had the opportunity to attend the AWWA and WEF YP Summit in Sacramento, California. The conference was exciting, overwhelming, but also full of hope as we discussed how we could solve our world’s water challenges.

The YP Summit is an annual three-day event filled with exciting activities. The first day was dedicated to a pre-summit activity, which is typically an outdoor or community service event. This year, the activity was a tour held at the Echo Water Project. The second day was divided into two leadership workshops – the AWWA YP Leader Training Day and the WEF Emerging Young Professionals Leadership Workshop with a networking reception at the end of the day. Camille attended the AWWA training while Shannon attended the WEF training. During the AWWA training event, AWWA CEO, David LaFrance, taught us why we need to create a personal marketing plan and explained how to create it. Mr. LaFrance shared anecdotes and lessons which helped us realize that this plan can give us a framework on how to reach our goals. Next, the young professionals had a group discussion and listed the characteristics of what we think a great leader should be. Some of the traits we agreed on are: great communicator, empathetic, open minded, progressive, and able to engage in tough conversations. This activity made us contemplate the values we will need to develop as an aspiring young leader. Lastly, YP Chairs from the various sections gave us input on how to engage new members and retain existing ones. Some ideas include holding fundraisers to sponsor more YP’s to attend the YP Summit, themed networking events, and providing free valuable training to operators and students.

The last day of the summit was full of engaging presentations from knowledgeable professionals. Mr. Mark Knudson, who shared a presentation on ‘Multi-Purpose Tools for Water Pros’. Next, Mae Stevens, a water lobbyist, and founder and CEO of the Safe Water Voters, taught all of us how to be an effective water advocate. Then, Adam Tank, a founder, author, podcaster, and speaker, gave a fun and engaging presentation on how to create our own marketing plan. To close the conference, we had a networking event where we made new friends from all over the country.

It has been a great pleasure and honor to hold the position of YP committee chair this past year. I have learned so much from so many incredible individuals from AWWA-HI Section. I hope that the events I helped coordinate in the past year were enjoyable and beneficial to all the YP attendees. It is now time to pass the baton and welcome our new chairs this year [listed above].§